It is commonly known to those skilled in the art to use a bill validator to check authentication and denomination of banknotes. Bill validators are used in a wide variety of applications including; vending machines, gaming machines, ticketing machines and automated teller machines. Bill validators typically include a sensing unit for sensing authenticity and denomination of inserted banknotes. Various types of sensing systems can be employed by a bill validation device for example, optical sensing, magnetic sensing or a combination of both. Typical bill validation devices have power provided for operation either from the host machine or from a direct power source such as a standard AC power outlet.
A limitation of the type of bill validator described above is that it is in a continuously “ON” mode and thus continually draws power either from the host machine or through a directly connected power source. As overall power consumption for a host machine is becoming more of an issue due to operation costs, there is a need to reduce such consumption.
There exist different solutions to reducing power consumption of a host machine, and this can be accomplished by controlling internal devices and their operation. For example, one solution for a vending machine for dispensing cooled beverages is to control the refrigeration temperatures at different times during the day. Such a solution is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,581,396.
Other solutions for reducing power consumption of a vending machine are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,991,129. In yet other solutions, various sub-components (e.g., bill validator) are cycled between an “ON” mode and an “OFF” mode in order to reduce that overall amount of power being consumed by the host machine.